Don’t you think Grace could have protected herself better emotionally by relying more on words and/or actions and less on non-verbal cues?
The full thread from what I posted above:
https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/953026712421502976
https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/953027332889108481
https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/953028954994171905
https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/953029772594081792
A hard-NO as opposed to a soft-‘not right now’ is an escalation/confrontation to some.
No it’s not. The standard in dating, at least in my experience, is that you don’t discuss sex beforehand on a date. It’s not as if at dinner one party says, “I’d like to have sex with you tonight.” Does that really happen? I’m sure it probably has, but I don’t think it’s the norm. I think women like to be wooed rather than asked.
The time to be explicit is when either one wants to say no after a pass has been made. You just have to be direct at that point if you want it to stop. Women understand that, don’t they? Maybe a woman uses the non-verbal stuff initially to avoid confrontation, but when a man persists the woman needs to be very clear.
And of course sometimes it’s reversed. Sometimes it’s the woman who initiates, though it’s unusual.
Okay, I get all that. I’m a pretty empathetic guy. I’m being empathetic to both parties and thinking about what both of them could have done differently so that they (and we) can learn from this.
Yes, I can accept that.
Now, can we accept that Aziz couldn’t?
Except, was he a douche?
Being only interested in fucking someone isn’t illegal or immoral, and I’d say it’s not even particularly douchy as long as you don’t deceive or coerce. From her portrayal, it didn’t seem like any deception or coercion was going on.
I can only speak for me, but I think the scenario started as one when it came up with the MeToo movement and shifted to another, and I’ve been asking myself why? What makes this different. If this is not the top of the sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, sexual assault spectrum, what about it is exactly different. I’m still answering that (this is important… I don’t think we have an established top), but I will say this… his behavior is not the shining example of what should have happened here… for sure.
I do not understand why people would defend this guy as not being the creep he seems to be, but I am leaning towards him not being an actual assailant. I absolutely do not see this as all her fault. We’re not in the 60s anymore… she has a right to go to a guy’s place during the first date and not expect sex.
I don’t think she acted perfectly in this scenario, but neither do I expect women should have to be perfect all the time. It gets goddamn exhausting trying to be perfect all damn day. Maybe he should take some responsibility here. If she is pushing back, back off. This is no longer a good situation to be in, and he can make that determination too.
This depends on whether or not this was a casual encounter. When I say casual encounter… we all know what that means right? People can hook-up just to hook-up and pressure doesn’t have to be involved. Everyone involved in that scenario, usually knows they’re hooking-up… it’s not like surprise!
We never had easy-to-get casual encounters back when I was a young buck. I have no idea what that is like. Tinder seems like something out of a far-flung future like I’d read in a science fiction story.
I guess it was out there but I didn’t know where to find it. I was never comfortable having sex with the idea of it not being part of an ongoing relationship anyway. I was always worried I might hurt someone if I had sex and then didn’t want to see that person again. I just assumed it meant more to a woman than it did to a man, but that may have been sexist thinking.
Yay, we agree! What can she do differently next time? What can she learn?
And, yes, of course Aziz should also take responsibility. That’s what I’ve been writing.
His public statement said he “took her words to heart” meaning he learned from it. So he is taking responsibility.
Well, the fingers in mouth thing is très weird you have to admit, not sure what is going on with that.
The divide comes down to nonverbal vs verbal communication, really. This seems to be very hard for society to have a conversation about, not the least of which reasons is the underlying assumption about nonverbal communication is that you should just “know” how to communicate nonverbally and it’s weird that you don’t, weirdo (there was even an Economist article a few months ago about “What men should learn to do” during the beginning of Weinsteingate that said, and i’m pretty sure i’m quoting from memory “Learn to read a fucking room”). It’s clear she communicated nonverbally she wasn’t into it, and he didn’t respond to that.
This is a subject i’m not really familiar with. Is there some literature on legal ramifications, or maybe… dunno, sociological expectations of nonverbal communication?
I think the reason people are hypersensitive to this Nesrie is that while it’s clear it may not have “legal” ramifications it can clearly have “business” ramifications, as in he may or may not ever work in Hollywood again. There is a huge difference between saying I feel like i was sexually assaulted vs I had a bad date with a creepy guy, which is what the article stated at the end; even if legally one can’t be proven over the other. I’m sorry you have to shoulder the burden here though!
If this affects his career I’ll be shocked. There will be a huge backlash, like pitchforks and torches and marching in the streets and I’ll be right there with them. He’s one of the good guys and this encounter doesn’t change that one iota.
Why is he a good guy though? He’s just some face on a screen? What has he done to deserve being called good? That seems like an a priori argument.
Well before Tinder, there was Cragislist and before that there message boards and chatrooms. I think the term today, and no it’s not something I am into anymore, it’s more like a casual relationship, as in it’s not always a one night stand and poof so much as a non-committal relationship.
We actually agreed on this a long time ago, the problem is your idea of Aziz taking responsibility and mine are completely different. His public statement is not him saying you know nextime a girl seems unsure, maybe I should just zip it up, despite my physical desire to do otherwise, and better yet… maybe there’s something I can do to help make sure the girl coming is actually ready to have sex before it all comes off.
His public statement doesn’t say much at all really, but him texting her the next day, he reached out to her according to what I read, says he was still clueless how bad it went the night before. You don’t usually reach out to someone like that unless you want to continue some kind of relationship.
I understand there is risk her for him, but since @rrmorton keeps asking me what Grace learned, let’s try a different question.
What have learned from #MeToo? That answer shouldn’t be Weinstein should’ve been locked up and everyone else gets to continue like nothing happened.
There is something broken here, and society needs to help fix it and not rely on just locking up bad guys with big names and money as a real fix. And by society, I don’t mean women need to walk away sooner, the weight shouldn’t just be ours to bear.
You must not have seen Master of None. He’s fighting the good fight, writing stories about women and minorities and generally helping the world move in a positive direction. Notice anything unusual in these pics?
He’s been dropped by his agent and is facing further horrible allegations, including assaulting another young girl. He was the main stunt guy for Blade Runner 2049 last year and was working on Westworld.
I think it’s pretty absurd that you expect him to say this kind of thing publicly a day or two after the story breaks. This was a private encounter.
But, you’re right. We should hear more from him. And I can pretty much guarantee that he’ll write this experience into Master of None or his next stand-up set. If you’re not familiar with his work, that’s what he does. Beautifully, I might add! So just stay tuned.
I think it’s absurd that you think a woman standing naked in the room of someone she kind of has a crush on, is really into, and is in the middle of panicking will sit there and process information the same you are right now.
She’s in the middle of panicking, freaking out. He’s willfully not seeing that, ignoring all the non-verbal signs that has the NYTs trying to say everyone wants him to be a mind-reader to notice, and I’m just thinking… this could not have felt right for either of them. How could it feel right? If we have led our young men to believe that all the cues have to come from her, but at the same time demand only a set of specific verbal cues to be acknowledged… that’s not reasonable to expect.
Oh please, she’s a freaking adult.
Reposting from twitter into a quote for easier reading:
People keep coming up with “BUT SHE HAS RESPONSIBILITY TO COMMUNICATE, TOO!”
and “BUT YOU INFANTILIZE WOMEN BY SAYING WE HAVE NO POWER TO LEAVE!”This is not about “Women are too weak to speak up or leave.”
This is about a person who, in a particular situation, might feel unsafe doing so or even be, for whatever reason, unable to do so.
The person could be anyone.
The power imbalance and gender socialization of our world being what it is, the person is probably a woman, probably dealing with a man. But this is not necessarily so.
AT THE MOMENT when you are at your weakest and your most vulnerable and your least able to communicate, THAT IS THE MOMENT when you require the most special care, the most deference, the most comfort, and the most protection.
And IN THAT MOMENT, when you are at your most vulnerable, that is when the consequences of rough handling, of being bulldozed or ran roughshod over, are going to be the most damaging.
If you set aside your defensive “NOT ME, I AM STRONK” impulses and search the corners of your memory, you can probably summon up an instance where you were exposed and frozen and someone either saw and helped you, or didn’t see and plowed through you, or saw and took advantage.
It might not be sexual. It might not even be anything of great consequences, even if the feelings were deep and real.
And if you were lucky enough that it happened when it didn’t matter much, then perhaps you can stretch yourself to imagine it could happen at a time when it would matter.
Communication is a must for all participants! Yes! Absolutely!
But if you have the wherewithal to initiate a sexual maneuver, you’ve got the wherewithal to open hailing frequencies.
You take responsibility because you’re the one making the advance.
Most of the more interesting things you can do with another human being in that arena, you shouldn’t be springing on them unannounced anyway (for instance: don’t just stick something in someone’s mouth if you’re not okay losing it.)
Because people do freeze, people do find their heart in their throat when they’re trying to speak, people do get overwhelmed in the moment.
I got married in 1983. What was there pre-1983? I think there were naughty ads in the backpages of some free weeklies. There were casual hookups at bars – Looking for Mr. Goodbar – but there weren’t apps like there are now. It’s a different world.
When I was single again, 10 years ago, I did use Craigslist and dating sites. I never found either to be an easy way to casually hook-up – I was never looking that that anyway. CL was rife with fake stuff looking to exploit people. There seemed to be a lot of guys posting dick pics in the casual section (yes, I looked because you wanted to see what the competition was posting and, yeesh! look away!) and women posting their pics of their whatevers (quite a lot of yeesh there too), but I never posted nor responded to anything in the casual section. I felt like I would get some version of online herpes. I felt like I was going to get catfished. That’s something that happens to men, not women, btw.
I am interested to know how this would work? What would you expect a man to say? In a sense, when a man asks a woman on a date if she wants to go back to his apartment, both parties should be aware that the man is likely to attempt to initiate sex. It would actually be a bit weird and awkward if the man asked and then said, “I don’t want to have sex with you. I just want to show you my stamp collection.”
I think Ansari was too aggressive but I think the woman was too silent. I hope this doesn’t hurt his career because I don’t think this brands him as a sex assaulter. I think it’s a bad date.